Young women in 15-24 age-group are highly vulnerable to getting infected with HIV, warns UNAIDS

Globally, between 2010 and 2015, the number of new HIV infections among young women aged between 15 and 24 years was reduced by just 6%, from 420,000 to 390,000.ETHealthWorld | November 28, 2016, 18:39 IST

Geneva: A new report by UNAIDS, which contains detailed data on the complexities of HIV, reveals that the ages between 15 and 24 years are an incredibly dangerous time for young women. In 2015, around 7500 young women became newly infected with HIV every week.

Globally, between 2010 and 2015, the number of new HIV infections among young women aged between 15 and 24 years was reduced by just 6%, from 420,000 to 390,000. To reach the target of less than 100,000 new HIV infections among adolescent girls and young women by 2020 will require a 74% reduction in the four years between 2016 and 2020, according to a statement by UNAIDS.

“Young women are facing a triple threat,” said UNAIDS executive director Michel Sidibé. “They are at high risk of HIV infection, have low rates of HIV testing, and have poor adherence to treatment. The world is failing young women and we urgently need to do more.”

According to the report, countries are getting on the fast-track, with an additional one million people accessing treatment in just six months (January to June 2016). By June 2016, around 18.2 million people had access to the life-saving medicines, including 910,000 children, double the number five years earlier. “If these efforts are sustained and increased, the world will be on track to achieve the target of 30 million people on treatment by 2020,” according to UNAIDS.

The report also shows that the life-extending impact of treatment is working. In 2015, there were more people over the age of 50 living with HIV than ever before—5.8 million. The report highlights that if treatment targets are reached, that number is expected to soar to 8.5 million by 2020. Older people living with HIV, however, have up to five times the risk of chronic disease and a comprehensive strategy is needed to respond to increasing long-term healthcare costs.

The report also warns of the risk of drug resistance and the need to reduce the costs of second- and third-line treatments. It also highlights the need for more synergies with tuberculosis (TB), human papillomavirus (HPV) and cervical cancer, and hepatitis C programmes in order to reduce the major causes of illness and death among people living with HIV. In 2015, 400,000 of the 1.1 million people who died from an AIDS-related illness died from TB, including 40,000 children.

“The progress we have made is remarkable, particularly around treatment, but it is also incredibly fragile,” said Sidibé. “New threats are emerging and if we do not act now we risk resurgence and resistance. We have seen this with TB. We must not make the same mistakes again.”

Globally, access to HIV medicines to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV has increased to 77% in 2015 (up from 50% in 2010). As a result, new HIV infections among children have declined by 51% since 2010. The report highlights that of the 150,000 children who were newly infected with HIV in 2015, around half were infected through breastfeeding.

The report warns that new HIV infections are continuing to rise among people who inject drugs (by 36% from 2010 to 2015) and among gay men and other men who have sex with men (by 12% from 2010 to 2015) and are not declining among sex workers or transgender people.

The report shows that antiretroviral therapy is allowing people living with HIV to live longer. In 2015, people more than 50 years old accounted for around 17% of the adult population (15 years and older) living with HIV. In high-income countries, 31% of people living with HIV were over the age of 50 years.

As people living with HIV grow older, they are also at risk of developing long-term side-effects from HIV treatment, developing drug resistance and requiring treatment of co-morbidities, such as TB and hepatitis C, which can also interact with antiretroviral therapy. “Continued research and investment is needed to discover simpler, more tolerable treatments for HIV and co-morbidities and to discover an HIV vaccine and cure,” states the UNAIDS report.

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